Behavioral Competencies for Innovation

“Change is life. Without it, we die. In organizations, without constant adaptation and innovation, our competitors take our market share or change the market. Gerli, Cortellazzo and Bonesso have created a scientific guide to how organizations can foster innovation through thoughtful applications of competency research with their key people and human capital. Using their ideas and methods will not only rejuvenate your organizational climate and increase engagement, but will put you ahead of the competition for a long time!”

— Richard E. Boyatzis, Distinguished University Professor, Case Western Reserve University, Co-author of the international best seller, Primal Leadership and the new book, Helping People Change.

“This book is written for all of us because the desire to innovate is closely related to the desire to have a purposeful work life… How can people become more innovative and creative? Science and practice will benefit from this hardback from the details on how emotional and social intelligence competencies empower the generation and implementation of creative ideas. It is a must read book for HR professionals if they want to find their way to promote a culture of innovation.”

— Tanya Bondarouk, Full Professor of Human Resource Management, University of Twente, The Netherlands.

This book represents the first comprehensive investigation of the role of emotional intelligence in promoting innovation in the organizational context. Offering emerging insights into the human side of innovation. This book highlights how it has become strategically important for firm innovativeness to identify and evaluate those behavioral competencies that enable entrepreneurs and professionals to generate different types of innovation (product, process, marketing, organizational and strategic innovation). It illustrates a classification of behavioral competencies for innovation and provides empirical evidence collected through the application of the competency-based methodology to a sample of entrepreneurs and new product development teams. This book provides practical policy and managerial implications on how to develop and evaluate behavioral competencies in the higher education and organizational settings in order to foster individual innovation capacity.
Sara Bonesso is Associate Professor of Business Organization and Human Resources Management at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Management. She is also one of the founders and the Vice-Director of the Ca’ Foscari Competency Centre.

Laura Cortellazzo is Post Doc Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Business Organization and Human Resources Management at the Cà Foscari University, Department of Management. Fabrizio Gerli is Associate Professor of Business Organization and Human Resources Management at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Management. He is also one of the founders and the Director of the Ca’ Foscari Competency Centre.